Credentials

 My Back Pages

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats

Too noble to neglect

Deceived me into thinking

I had something to protect

Good and bad, I define these terms

Quite clear, no doubt, somehow

Ah, but I was so much older then

I'm younger than that now.

With age comes wisdom, not certainty.

If I could turn back time, I would tell my younger self that building a reputation was not vanity, was not self serving.  Your reputation provides you a platform.  Credentials provide you with credibility.  Getting a reputation and credentials may provide you with the means of promoting a good idea.  If you have a good idea and no one listens to that idea, that idea may be the best thing for society, but if no one listens to that idea, society can never act on or benefit from it.. 

Having credentials does not mean that you are always correct, but it does mean that you have a platform.  An idea needs to be heard before it can be put into action.

Alfred Wallace had the idea of evolution  at roughly the same time as Charles Darwin.  Darwin promoted his idea to an audience and that idea was eventually listened to and tested. How many Wallaces are out there out there who have good ideas that are not being acted upon.  Getting credentials and building your reputation does have a value to society, even if when you are young you don’t see that value.

Debates

 

Mrs. Robinson

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates' debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Ev'ry way you look at it, you lose 

When there is a debate over risks, will we always lose? 

In previous blog posts, I have suggested that human behavior can be explained by three attributes:

·       Rights vs. Duty;

·       Nature vs. Nurture; and

·       Reality vs. Fantasy.  

I have also suggested that risk, or its inverse reward, can be explained as the cross product of likelihood and consequences.  How risk is viewed depends on the behaviors listed above. 

If you place an extreme value on Rights (a User Optimal solution) vs Duty (a System Optimal solution), then the consequences of any action only exist if you, the user, exist.  Thus if your remaining life is only 25 years and the consequences will not be bad until after 50 years, then there is by your definition no bad consequences for you, and your perception of risk is low. 

If you place an extreme value on Nature, which means that persons can be excluded from your system based on their nature, regardless of how they are nurtured, then if the consequences are bad only for those not in your system, then you place no value on those consequences, and your perception of risk is low.

If you place an extreme value on Fantasy, then you are not likely to accept any likelihood that is different from your fantasy.  If your likelihood is low, then regardless of the consequences, your perception of risk is low.

Arguing risks with a person who won’t accept reality, will not change their mind.  Arguing risks for a future that is longer than that person’s lifetime, will not change the mind of anyone with an extreme Rights (User Optimal) perspective.  Arguing risks with a person with a person who excludes people based on their nature, if the risks are only to those who they exclude anyway, will not change their mind. Debating things that will not change a mind, is how you lose.

For the Good of All

United We Stand

For united we stand
Divided we fall
And if our backs should ever be against the wall
We'll be together, together, you and I

Working together is not just the moral strategy, it is the richer strategy.

John Nash: If we all go for the blonde and block each other, not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because no on likes to be second choice. But what if none of us goes for the blonde? We won't get in each other's way and we won't insult the other girls. It's the only way to win. It's the only way we all get laid.

This quote from the 2002 Oscar Best Picture, "A Beautiful Mind”, is perhaps not the most elegant example of a Nash Equilibrium in Game Theory, but it does get the point across.  The scene takes place in a bar where John Nash and his friends are trying to pick up women.  If each friend acts without regard to what is best for everyone, then nobody will win. A User Optimal solution, getting the blonde, is not the System Optimal solution, making a pickup.  If each friend agrees not to pursue their own User Optimal solution, then the System Optimal solution is more likely to be achieved.

A key aspect in Game Theory is that games will be repeated, i.e. there will be a future.  If you want to find someone with whom to play a game, they have to feel that the game is fair, that you will not cheat, and that you are not misrepresenting yourself as being a worse player than you are.  It is why there are rules for the game and rankings, handicaps for players.  The price of cheating or misrepresenting yourself, hustling, is that you may not ever play another game.  If you believe in a future then you want to play another game, allow for growth.  If you believe in a future, then not pursuing the User Optimal solution may be the best strategy, for both yourself and others in the long run.

A classic example is the Ultimatum Game, where  Player 1 receives $100 to share with player 2.  The amount that Player 1 can offer to Player 2 can vary from $99 to $1.  If Player 2 accepts the offer, both players get to keep the money.  If Player 2 does not accept the offer, neither player gets to keep any of the money. The User Optimal solution is to give only $1 to the other player and keep $99 for yourself.  It was expected that this offer would always be accepted, because then each player would be richer. Player 1 by $99 and Player 2 by $1. But in practice Player 2 would not accept an offer of less than $30.  It seems that the other player expected the game to be played again and expected to offer at least $30 if the roles were reversed. When the Player 1 offered only $1, he indicated to Player 2  that he did not expect to play again, in other words the User Optimal  strategy places no value on future winnings. 

The User Optimal strategy is to offer only $1.  The System Optimal strategy appears to be an offer of $30.  If there is a second game, with roles reverse, and in that game Player 2 also follows a User Optimal strategy and that offer was rejected, then the result is that neither player has any money.   In the second game, with roles reversed, if Player 2 offered Player 1 $30 and the offer was accepted, then after two games Player 1 would have $30 and Player 2 would have $70, for a system total of $100. If the offer in both games was $30, the System Optimal Strategy, and was accepted each time, after two games each player would have $100, for a system total of $200..  

If both Players always pursue a User Optimal strategy, no one wins, ,e.g. no one gets the blonde. If both players follow a System Optimal strategy, in every game, both players and society would be richer.

Truth, Justice and the American Way

 

Look Up in the Sky!

Yes, it's Superman – strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.
 Superman – defender of law and order, champion of equal rights, valiant, courageous fighter against the forces of hate and prejudice
who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for
truth, justice and the American way.

What so funny about Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

In previous blogs, I had suggested that there are four attributes that can be used as a framework for human behavior.  The fourth  attribute, perception of public property, is really just a subset of another attribute.  Those who believe in  an extreme User Optimization also will have a perception that public property is only their property owned jointly with other users of the public. Those with an extreme System Optimization will have a perception that public property is owned by the public as a user, as opposed to any individual user.  Thus there really are only three attributes that can be used to define human behavior, and those attributes in the extreme are the same as those supported by Superman: Truth, Justice, and the American way.

Truth is an aspect of the  attribute of Reality vs. Fantasy.  While it sound silly to say that a fictional character supports truth, it is that truth does not care what you wish it to be.  Wishing doesn’t make it so.  Those who want the truth,  and I am not a fan of Col. Jessup’s “You can’t  handle the truth”, have to deal with the fact that eyewitness testimony and memory are poor tools for uncovering the truth. Rashomon anyone? The ubiquitous nature of cell phone videos has made the truth much easier to discover.

Justice is not the spirit of the Law, not the letter of the Law. The Law is about your rights.  Justice is about your duty.  Laws are what an economist would refer to as shadow prices, which are imposed to make a User Optimal solution, closer to a System Optimal solution. Killing your competitors is an extreme User Optimal solution.  Not killing anyone is an extreme System Optimal solution.  Following the letter of the Law rather than the spirit of the Law makes one a Pharisee.

The American way, as it aspires to be, is inclusive where everyone is judged by their merits, rather than exclusive. The reality is that it is too often an exclusive caste system where people are judged by qualities over which they have no control.  Remember Superman fought again the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis.  Superman was created by Jewish children of immigrants.    Based on the fact that Superman was an undocumented immigrant brought to this planet and country when he was a minor, if undocumented immigrants are excluded from the society, then Superman, the ultimate DACA Dreamer, also has to be excluded from society.

If human behavior can be judged by three attributes: Reality vs Fantasy; Rights vs Duty; and Inclusion versus Exclusion; then we know where Superman stands….and I don’t mean with his hands on his hips!

Capitalism

The Name Game

Lincoln! Lincoln, Lincoln. bo-bin-coln
Bo-na-na fanna, fo-fin-coln
Fee fi mo-min-coln, Lincoln!
Come on ev'rybody, I say now let's play a game
I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody's name

What we call something unfortunately can affect how we approach something.

When my then two-year-old said that there was a bear in our backyard, I assumed that he meant a Teddy Bear.  My brother-in-law, who lives in the woods, had an entirely different reaction, and thought that it meant black bears were at his bird feeder again. Just saying bear is incomplete because it only focuses on one component. 

Capitalism focuses on only one component of free market economics, i.e. capital.  The name does not mean that capital is the only component of production in markets.   A production equation includes both capital AND labor. You can’t have production without both.  Labor can not be owned by another.  That is considered to be slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution abolished slavery.  Corporations are chartered by society to protect the assets of a producer from liability.  That includes both the assets of those supplying the labor and those supplying the capital.  Corporations, since they have been chartered by society, are considered to have free speech ( e.g. Citizens United).  But corporate boards almost exclusively represent the interests of capital, not labor or society.  Speaking, and acting, with unity is considered to be acceptable for capital, ( e.g. Manufacturer’s Associations, Chambers of Commerce, etc.), but is seems to be considered to be wrong when labor speaks and acts with unity, i.e. labor unions.

Free markets are a User Optimal solution, e.g. rights of the individual, but properly both capital and labor are users.  The ownership of labor and capital is what distinguishes free markets from socialism, communism, etc.  The ownership of capital by society, whether only in certain industries as in Scandinavian Socialism, or all industries as in Communist countries, must be considered, but so must the ownership of labor. In Scandinavian socialism, all labor is owned by individuals.  In total communism, all labor is owned not by individuals, but by the government.

If the ownership of capital and labor is how economic systems is considered, many “Communist” countries can not be considered to be Communist.  Considerable amounts of capital are owned by individuals and corporations in those countries. E.g. Jack Ma in “Communist “China is among the world's wealthiest individual. Controlling society does not mean owning capital.

Democracy is one manner of how society is controlled.  Capitalism is not democracy.  That is only one part of the name game.

Unions

 

King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

I work for the union
‘Cause she's so good to me
And I'm bound to come out on top
That's where she said I should be

Are unions always good for you?

Some disclaimers.  While I am a union supporter and my father was a long-time union member, during 1992 to 1998 I was Director of the Massachusetts Highway Department’s Bureau of Transportation Planning and Development. Thus I have also by definition been a manager and a bureaucrat.  So when I say that unions can also be bureaucratic it is not meant to be an aspersion on unions, managers, or bureaucrats.

While I was Director, I had to make a choice about hiring a new Geographic Information System, GIS, position. My choices were a person who was not a union member, had no work experience but had just graduated with a degree in  GIS versus a current employee who was a union member, had unrelated work experience and no GIS training.  I opted for the recent GIS employee.  Among her first tasks was to train the other applicant, who filed a union grievance that she should have been given preference in hiring.

After a year, the GIS employee left and the other previous applicant, whom she had trained, was promoted to replace her.  Some time after that the original union grievance hearing was finally held.  Remember that the grievant now held the position which she was grieving that she had been denied.  The outcome of the hearing was that the grievance was upheld and the current occupant of the GIS position should have been hired in the first place, but because the hiring was otherwise proper, she was owed no difference in pay for the interim, .  In order to complete the union grievance, the original grievant, who was the current occupant of the position, was effectively fired for a nanosecond and then immediately rehired.

Which just goes to show that unions can also be bureaucratic.  Yogi Berra should have been the union hearing officer because the outcome made as much sense as “ No one goes there any more.  It’s too crowded.”

In The Heights

Paciencia Y Fe

What do you do when your dreams come true?

I've spent my life inheriting dreams from you

What do I do with this winning ticket?

What can I do but pray

What are your dreams?

Having just watched In The Heights, can I offer a geeky mathematical synopsis of the movie’s plot.  Usnavi and Nina choose System Optimal solutions rather than User Optimal solutions.  Usnavi stays in Washington Heights to be part of that society rather than pursue his dream of operating his father’s bar in the Dominican Republic.  Nina chooses to return to Stanford, even though she is not happy at Stanford, because then she can be more successful in fighting for the rights of Dreamers.

John Nash, himself the subject of the Oscar winning Best Picture, A Beautiful Mind, showed that there is a difference between a User Optimal Nash Equilibrium and a System Optimal solution.  That is why the ending is satisfying. Because as a society we prefer System Optimal solutions.

“There is no I in Team.”
“I only regret that I have but one life to give for my county.”
“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.”
“It takes a village to raise a child.”
“Let me listen to my block.”  

Choose your solution for your block, not for yourself.